Picture or panel of a woman in a pink dress, silk embroidered and painted on silk, after oil-painted panel Sybilia Delphica (ca. 1886) by Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), possibly associated with The Royal School of Art Needlework, probably British, ca. 1886-1890.

Picture or panel of a woman in a pink dress, after oil-painted panel Sybilia Delphica (ca. 1886) by Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898). The silk ground has been embroidered with silk and painted.

Gift of Ian and Rita Smythe

Hand embroidery was an important aspect of the Arts and Crafts and connected Art Nouveau movements. William Morris and others, dissatisfied with the often formulaic and bright Berlin woolwork fashionable throughout most of the nineteenth century, ushered in what Linda Parry terms an ‘artistic re-appraisal of the craft in the 1870s’ (Linda Parry, Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, new ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005), p. 29). The embroideries associated with this re-appraisal were influenced by the period’s interest in both nature and the classical world as sources of forms and inspiration. Such pieces featured a wide range of stitches and the subtle shades favoured by Arts and Crafts designers and makers. Brighter colours and more stylised figures emerged as Art Nouveau rose to prominence towards the end of the century. Many of the designs were produced by leading artists, such as Selwyn Image. Originally the embroideries were worked at homes, usually by the designers’ female relatives. Later, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau embroidery was also made professionally and came to be known as Art Needlework. Societies such as The Royal School of Art Needlework, founded in 1872, produced, sold and exhibited pieces, as well as selling designs and partially completed embroideries to home embroiderers. In 1873 this School held an exhibition at the South Kensington Museum, which would become the V&A.

This picture or panel is Arts and Crafts in terms of design. It is connected to a design leader of the era, being based on Edward Burne-Jones’s painted panel Sybilia Delphica (ca. 1886), and may also be associated with The Royal School of Art Needlework as Burne-Jones is known to have collaborated with them.

T.73-2019